205 kms / 3 hrs

Katherine - Kakadu

Thankfully Bronte woke up fine this morning although Josh was very cranky with daddy and kept saying that daddy made Bronte throw up.

We left Katherine around 10am today and sadly it was time to farewell mum and dad (who are driving back to Sydney) whilst we head North to Kakadu.

When we arrived at Mary River Roadhouse to collect our National Park Pass we were served by a backpacker who couldn't answer any of my questions and then told me she had never even been in the national park yet. She directed us to the rangers office further down the road and when we arrived, there was no one there. So not very good first impressions of Kakadu! We continued onto our campsite after Rog spotted a donkey (who would have thought this would be the first animal we spotted in Kakadu!) some wild horses, a small grass fire on the side of the road and arrived around 1pm.

We had lunch and then got ready to back track approx. 80 kms to Gunlom (we would have loved to have camped here the night but we were a bit worried about the caravan travelling the 40 kms on dirt road). What a beautiful location. We went straight to cool off in the clear plunge pool and waterfall. There was a shallow area with a sandy bottom so the kids loved being able to stand up and the backdrop of the waterfall was very pretty. We would love to see the waterfall in wet season. Rog was very excited as this is where they filmed a scene in Crocodile Dundee (the first movie, where he spears a fish and goes for a swim).

We then walked the 2km steep climb to the top of the waterfall and a lookout with great views over Southern Kakadu. Further on from the lookout are lots of rock pools and after the hard walk up it was well worth it. There were different rock pools, one with a waterfall, and another with an infinity pool looking out over southern Kakadu and when you swam over to the edge it looked down on another waterfall. It was so picturesque and we would have loved to have stayed here for hours but we still had to walk back down and get back to the caravan.

The one hour drive home was better than we expected and we got back to the caravan around 7pm, where we just had cereal for dinner.